catapult magazine

Coffee

by Uma Gowrishankar

She roasted
plantation A and pea berry
in a bowl of dark smoke;

milk on the coal stove boiled,
frothing perspirations of pearl,
cream papery and tense, trembling.

She poured herself in the cup
stirred in aroma from folds of her skin:
in coffee fumes nobody is lost.

The day she died we roasted seeds,
coffee dust settled on the tiles,
in the crevices where scorpions lingered.

I cherish my morning cup of filter coffee; it is richly flavored by my memories of days when coffee making was a lengthy ritual. My grandmother roasted coffee beans, ground them and percolated the powder to make a strong decoction. Cow’s milk, boiled on a coal stove, was added to the fresh decoction to produce a creamy cup of coffee. The day began with a cup of strong coffee and a lazy afternoon was spent with another cup of coffee over family gossip.